By the early years of the fourteenth century, many Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, the main instrument for discussing the difficult doctrinal questions of the Christian faith, had changed dramatically from questions with a few simple arguments for and against particular responses to catalogues of authors and collections of their arguments in support of one side or the other. If one examines just the questions of the Prologue to these works, they have expanded from a few pages to a volume of their own. The modern editions of the Prologue of John Duns Scotus’ Ordinatio fills 237 pages, that of Peter Auriol’s Scriptum counts 329 pages and William of Ockham’s Scriptum required 370 pages. The traditional questions about the four causes (material, formal, efficient, and final causes) of the Bible, or the Sentences, or the science of theology, exploded into a number of more specific questions and subquestions. John of Reading’s Commentary provides a text that is the final commentary of Reading. Still, it contains much of the material of his early commentary. This is most evident, as we have mentioned, from the fact that it contains materials criticized by William of Ockham and also has materials criticizing Ockham. Furthermore, it criticizes early fourteenth-century authors like Richard of Conington and Richard Drayton, and also later ones, such as Peter Auriol and William of Ockham. In sum, this final Commentary text, which only has the Prologue and six distinctions, is a compilation of his early and late treatments of the questions he debates.
World History
